The final electoral college count is Trump: 312, Harris: 226.
Just days after former President Donald Trump was projected to have won the presidency, Trump's transition team operation has begun, with transition co-chairs confirming that he will be selecting personnel to serve under his leadership in the coming days.
Trump is also the projected winner in Arizona, a state the former president flipped after losing it to Joe Biden in 2020.
Trump's projected win in the vital swing state marks a sweep of the battleground states.
ABC News is projecting that Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar will retain control of Texas’s 28th District. With 90% of expected vote reporting, Cuellar led his challenger, Republican Jay Furman, 52% to 48%. The close election here is somewhat surprising as Republicans didn’t target the district in the hopes of flipping it as they did in 2022.
During his victory speech, Trump thanked many of the people who contributed to his campaign, including his running mate JD Vance and his campaign managers, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles. In so doing, he went on some of the tangents that have become staples of his rally speeches, such as praising Elon Musk's Starlink internet service.
Trump: 'We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible'
In a post to social media, Harris surrogate Mark Cuban congratulated Trump on his apparent victory and said that the election was conducted"fair and square." According to NOTUS, another person in Harris's orbit expressed devastation. "I want to go home, get in my own bed and cry," they said.
The race isn't technically over, even though Harris's path to 270 electoral votes looks more and more narrow as the night (or morning) continues. With Pennsylvania now under his belt, Trump has clinched 266 electoral votes. We're still waiting for final calls in various states — including Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin — but Trump is currently ahead in all four states.
During a speech at Trump's campaign headquarters early on Wednesday morning, the former president acknowledged what increasingly looked like his impending win. "Frankly, I believe, this was the greatest political movement of all time," Trump said amid chants of U-S-A! U-S-A! "We're going to fix our borders. We're going to fix everything about our country."
Trump claims in his victory speech that he has won the popular vote. That's a little premature; while he does currently have 5 million more votes than Harris, Harris is expected to add to her total as more ballots are counted in states like California. If Trump does win the popular vote, it will be a remarkable achievement: Only one Republican (George W. Bush in 2004) in the last eight presidential elections has done so.
